


mostly just tea

by tourniquetspace



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 08:13:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1104509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tourniquetspace/pseuds/tourniquetspace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is sitting in his armchair, sipping his tea—his second one that morning—while resolutely staring at the mantelpiece.</p>
            </blockquote>





	mostly just tea

**Author's Note:**

> um, I'm really sorry for my terrible English? ^^

John is sitting in his armchair, sipping his tea—his second one that morning—while resolutely staring at the mantelpiece. It’s covered in old photographs, most of them look like they’d been taken sometime in the dawn of the twentieth century—going by the clothing the women on the pictures wear, though John is most certainly not an expert in this area (he can almost hear Sherlock’s scathing remarks about his fashion choices in his head, before he stomps them down by pure force of will). 

So, the mantelpiece is covered in old photographs, which is by far one of the less bizarre things it’s been covered with in the past years. It shouldn’t alarm John so much, except it does. One can never know what Sherlock Holmes is up to at any given time, and if there’s a possibility to make photographs into deadly weapons or a part of some spectacularly gruesome experiment, Sherlock Holmes will find the way.

“Ah, John, you are up,” Sherlock swans into the sitting room, dressing gown trailing after him in the usual overly dramatic, Sherlockian fashion.

“Care to tell me what those are about?” John gestures towards the mantle.

Sherlock gives him a shifty look, but doesn’t answer; instead he goes into the kitchen and starts poking at whatever experiment he left lying on the table the night before.

John doesn’t hold back his long-suffering sigh, it’s not like it has any effect, whatsoever on Sherlock. He picks up the newspaper from the coffee table and starts reading it, might as well, if Sherlock’s going to be a stubborn bastard about it.

+++

“Sherlock, where did those photos come from?” He tries again a little later, halfway through with finishing the paper.

A loud crashing noise—it was probably a beaker; John _hopes_ it was a beaker, they’re getting short on teacups—and hissing (maybe he should point out to Sherlock that people don’t start hissing like ruffled cats when something is not to their liking, but it’s really rather amusing, and Sherlock wouldn’t listen to him anyway; or he would just sink into an almighty sulk, which tends to be rough on the furniture) accompanied by swearing.

“All right there, Sherlock?” John asks.

“Fine.”

John sighs, folds the newspaper and walks into the kitchen; Sherlock is standing there, bare feet, in the midst of the remains of—yes, that was a beaker alright, a beaker previously containing some sort of gooey liquid in a frankly alarming shade of green. It is currently trying its best to chew its way through the floorboards. John contemplates just leaving the idiot—who doesn’t even have the common sense to climb on a chair to avoid the acidic fluid that is slowly but surely making its way towards Sherlock’s bare feet—to tend for himself. 

“Get on the chair, you moron,” he shouts finally, because really, it would be him who had to treat Sherlock’s injuries in the end, so might as well prevent them.

Sherlock just stands for a few endless seconds like a motionless statue, and then finally, _finally_ complies.

“It’s not actually as bad as it looks,” he says, tone bored. 

John resists the urge to hit him. 

“Really? Try telling that to Mrs Hudson when she comes upstairs and finds a gaping hole in her kitchen floor. What the hell is this anyway? Ectoplasm?”

Sherlock sends him one of his patented _“I can’t believe you are such an idiot, you’re lowering my IQ just by standing near me”_ looks. Then he does a double-take. “Pardon, ecto- what was it that you said?” Sherlock looks intrigued. John groans, he should know better by now than randomly mentioning pop culture references to Mr. I-deleted-the-Solar-System-because-it-was-dull.

“Nothing, Sherlock. Stop changing the subject,” John snaps, gesturing towards the chaos that is their kitchen floor right now. “And you still haven’t told me where those photographs came from. Are they some sort of weird family heirlooms?”

“Ah, those. They most certainly are. I nicked them from Sir Albert’s study last week.” He studiously avoids looking at John.

“You did what?!”

“Come on, John, don’t play stupid, you heard me clearly for the first time, and you know that I find repetition boring.”

“Oh really, let’s find out how boring you’ll find it when I start chucking those gold-encrusted picture frames at your head, you absolute madman!”

“I suppose I could measure the difference between impact if you tried throwing all of them with different force and from varying angles. That is if you’d manage to hit me with them, of course.” Sherlock’s face takes on a slightly terrifying musing expression. John is seconds away from showing him just how precisely he could hit the target—especially given such a large target as Sherlock’s ego-swelled head.

He runs his hands through his hair in a frustrated motion and takes a deep breath.

“If some black suited man appears on our doorstep to take you away to some undisclosed location—preferably someplace where _nothing ever happens_ —, because you stole some very precious looking heirlooms from an aristocrat, I’m not going to help you, Sherlock. I’m going to laugh at you, a lot. That’s what I’m going to do.”

He starts to make his way back toward the kitchen to put the kettle on—God, he needs a cuppa—then he remembers what is in the kitchen.

“And clean up the mess you’ve made in our kitchen.”

He changes his course instead, and goes to the stairs to disappear in his room for a little while. He needs some Sherlock-free time, or he’s going to commit homicide, and though he’s quite certain half of Scotland Yard would be more than happy to overlook the disappearance of his mad flatmate, said mad flatmate’s older brother would be less than pleased by such an occurrence.

+++

A few hours later, John wakes to tentative knocking on his bedroom door. He raises a doubtful eyebrow, but doesn’t comment besides murmuring a quick, “Come in.”

Sherlock looks petulant and a bit ashamed at the same time, as he stands in John’s doorway, holding a cup of tea.

“I cleaned up the kitchen, and bribed a member of my homeless network to deposit Sir Albert’s belongings at his residence.” Sherlock is holding the cup with a lot more force than necessary, his knuckles turned rather white, and John fears a little for one of their last serviceable tea cups’ safety, but refrains from commenting. It’s clear from his awkward mannerism that Sherlock has absolutely no idea how to _say_ that he is sorry. 

“Thank you, Sherlock.”

Sherlock gives a brisk nod, deposits the steaming cup on John’s bedside table and leaves without another word.

John takes a cautious sip from the tea—it’s not bad.


End file.
